Input/output processing

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure provides an electronic device that includes a lower device configured to process local input/output communications between the electronic device and a host, wherein the lower device is stateless. The electronic device also includes a memory comprising a data flow identifier used to associate a data flow resource of the host with a data flow resource corresponding to the lower device. A data packet sent from the lower device to the host includes the data flow identifier.

BACKGROUND

Local input/output (I/O) processing generally refers to thecommunication between an information processing system, such as ageneral purpose computer, and peripheral devices, such as NetworkInterface Cards (NICs), graphics processors, printers, scanners, datastorage devices, and user input devices, among others. Common I/Oparadigms include Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) and PCIExpress (PCIe). In these traditional I/O paradigms, peripheral devicesare able to access main memory directly through Direct Memory Access(DMA) reads and writes. A device driver hosted by the processor reservesa portion of host memory for various queues and control structures tohandle interactions with the peripheral device. Such information may bereferred to as state information and may include, for example,transmit/receive queues, completion queues, data buffers, and the like.Further, the peripheral device creates a shadow copy of the stateinformation in the local memory of the peripheral device. The stateinformation informs the peripheral device about various aspects of theorganization of the host memory, such as where to obtain work requests,the host memory addresses of related read and write operations, thelocation of completion queues, interrupt vectors, and the like.Accordingly, certain amount of processing overhead is directed tosynchronizing the state information between the host and the peripheraldevice.

Traditional I/O protocols generally involve a large overhead of controlcommands associated with the information transmitted between the hostand the peripheral device. For example, processing one Ethernet framemay involve 5 to 10 PCI transactions, which may result in a high degreeof latency as well as inefficient use of the PCI bus or link. Thetechniques used to improve latency and efficiency often introduce addeddegrees of complexity in an I/O transaction. Further, if the stateinformation between the host and the peripheral device becomesunsynchronized, the peripheral device can improperly access the hostmemory and cause silent data corruption, which is data corruption thatgoes undetected possibly resulting in system instability. Accordingly,various memory protection protocols are followed to reduce thelikelihood that a peripheral device will access memory not allocated toit. The memory protection protocols add yet another level of complexityto the I/O processes.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Certain embodiments are described in the following detailed descriptionand in reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a local I/O processing system, inaccordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an upper device, in accordance with anembodiment;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a lower device, in accordance with anembodiment;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an example of an I/O packet, in accordancewith an embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a process flow diagram of an example of an outbound writeoperation, in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 6 is a process flow diagram of an example of an inbound writeoperation, in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 7 is a process flow diagram of an example of a link-failoveroperation, in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 8 is a process flow diagram of a method of processing an outboundEthernet frame, in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 9 is a process flow diagram of a method of processing an inboundEthernet frame, in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 10 is a process flow diagram of a method of conducting a storagewrite, in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 11 is process flow diagram summarizing a method of processing localI/O, in accordance with an embodiment; and

FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing a non-transitory, computer-readablemedium configured to process local I/O, in accordance with anembodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF SPECIFIC EMBODIMENTS

Exemplary embodiments relate to improved I/O transfer between a host anda device. Moreover, such exemplary embodiments may be adapted to providedata transfer rates in excess of 100 Gigabits per second (Gbps).

Various embodiments described herein provide a local Input/Output (I/O)paradigm or processing system that enables faster data rates overexisting local I/O techniques. The I/O processing system may include aprocessor-integrated upper I/O device, referred to herein as the “upperdevice,” and a lower I/O device, referred to herein as the “lowerdevice.” The upper device handles host resource management and errorprocessing through a set of logic that is common to all I/O devices.Further, work queues, completion queues, data management structures,error handling structures, and other state information structuresprovisioned by the device driver are stored in resources associated withor integrated into the upper device.

The lower device can include any local peripheral device, such as aNetwork Interface Controller (NIC), a graphics processor, a printer, ascanner, a data storage device, and user input devices, among others.The lower device may be stateless, meaning that it does not maintainstate of host-specific processing such as IOMMU mappings and it does notmaintain state that is used by the host to continue to operate shouldthe device fail. The stateless nature of the lower device means that thelower device does not include a shadow copy of the work queues,completion queues, data management structures, error handlingstructures, and other state information structures provisioned by thedevice driver and has no information regarding the mapping of the hostmemory. Thus, the lower device cannot directly access host memory, workqueues, completion queues, data buffers, or other state informationprovisioned by the device driver.

Further, the read/write by address model used in traditional PCI systemsis replaced by a push-push data flow model, wherein outbound data ispushed from the upper device to the lower device and inbound data ispushed from the lower device to the upper device. The flow of packetsbetween the upper device and lower device may be controlled, at least inpart, using data flow identifiers included in the packet header of eachI/O packet. The data flow identifier is an opaque handle that may beencoding or created using information from several inputs. For example,the data flow identifier may be created from inputs including anapplication identifier (e.g., a process identifier), a virtual machineidentifier, the lower device identifier, a processor core or threadlogical identifier, and the like. Embodiments of the present techniquesmay be better understood with reference to FIG. 1.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a local I/O processing system, inaccordance with embodiments. As shown in FIG. 1, the local I/Oprocessing system 100 includes a processor 102 operatively coupled to alower device 104 through an upper device 106, which may be integratedwith the processor 102. The processor 102 can include one or moreprocessor cores 108 coupled to a memory controller 110 and the upperdevice 106, for example, through a switch 112, which may include acrossbar switch, ring buffer, point-to-point internal mesh, and thelike. In embodiments, the processor 102 can host one or more virtualmachines.

The memory controller 110 may be operatively connected to a main memory114, which may include dual inline memory modules (DIMMs), or aprocessor-integrated memory module, for example. In embodiments, theprocessor 102 also includes one or more integrated memory componentssuch as one or more processor caches 116, which may be shared betweenthe processor cores 108. The upper device 106 may be configured toaccess the main memory 114, the caches 116, or other memory componentsintegrated with or coupled to the processor 102. As used herein the term“memory” is used to refer to any processor integrated memory or cache,discrete memory or cache, or upper device-integrated memory or cache.The memory may be accessed directly through hardware or indirectlythrough software, for example, using load/store semantics.

The processor 102 may be configured with a coherency protocol thatmanages the consistency of data stored in the various memory resourcesavailable to the processor, such as the caches 116 and the main memory114. The coherency protocol is used to notify all processes running inthe coherency protocol of changes to shared values. The upper device 106operates in the coherency domain of the processor 102, meaning that theupper device 106 is notified with regard to memory changes and providesnotification to the other processors regarding memory accessed by theupper device 106.

In an embodiment, the I/O system 100 does not include a PCIe RootComplex or the associated Root ports associated with traditional PCIelocal I/O systems. The upper device 106 can control the flow of databetween the memory resources associated with the processor 102 and thelower devices 104. The upper device 106 may be integrated with theprocessor 102 or may be included in the system 100 as a discrete I/Odevice operatively coupled to the processor 102. Furthermore, althoughone upper device 106 is shown, it will be appreciated that a processor102 may have a plurality of upper devices 106, for example, hundreds orthousands of upper devices 106. Additionally, it will be appreciatedthat the upper device 106 may be integrated into the same circuitpackage or silicon chip as the processor 102.

The upper device 106 may include a variety data flow resources such asdata and control buffers, which reside in reserved registers of mainmemory 114, upper-device integrated memory, processor-integrated memorysuch as cache 116, discrete memory associated with the upper device 106,or some combination thereof. For example, the data flow resources of theupper device 106 can include one or more transmit/receive queues 118.Each transmit/receive queue 118 can include a work queue 120, receivequeue 122, and completion queue 124 used to process the various I/Ooperations received from or sent to the lower device 104. For example,I/O operations can include configuration operations, status operations,error handling and notification, memory reads, and memory writes, amongothers. The work queue 120 contains work requests related to I/Ooperations such as memory reads and writes. For example, each element ofthe work queue 120 relates to a particular memory operation and caninclude status information, read commands, write commands, startingmemory address, and length of the corresponding memory operation, amongothers. The receive queue 122 contains work requests related to inbounddata that are to be pushed to the upper device 106 from the lower device104. The completion queue 124 is used by the upper device 106 toindicate that a particular I/O operation contained in a correspondingwork queue 120 or receive queue 122 has been processed. The work queues120, receive queues 122, and completion queues 124 may be coherentlymanaged by software running on the processor 102 such as ageneral-purpose device driver interface. Furthermore, although one setof work queues 120, receive queues 122, and completion queues 124 areshown, it will be appreciated that the upper device 106 may includemultiple queues, each related to a different work flow, or associatedwith a different lower device 104.

The upper device 106 can also include a data flow management structure126, which can include various information related to I/O processingmanagement, such as quality of service (QoS) data, security data, andthe like. Thus, the data flow management structure 126 of the upperdevice 106 may also include I/O virtualization (IOV) structure data,which provides management information associated with each virtualmachine running on the processor 102. The data flow management structure126 may also contain data flow information corresponding to eachattached lower device 104. For example, the data flow managementstructure 126 may associate each lower device 104 with a specific dataflow identifier. The upper device 106 exchanges packets with the lowerdevice 104 via one or more electrical conductors or optical interfaceports 136. The interface ports 136 may be point-to-point or busattached.

In embodiments, the upper device 106 includes an I/O memory managementunit (IOMMU) 130 used to identify physical memory address associatedwith memory read and write operations. The IOMMU 130 can also be used tovalidate memory access operations to ensure that a particular processattempting to access memory has the appropriate access rights for thememory address or addresses targeted by the process. The IOMMU 130 caninclude a translation agent 132 and translation cache 134. Thetranslation agent 132 may be configured to identify a physical memoryaddress for memory read or write operations. The translation cache 134may be used to store memory address translations for more frequentlyused memory locations.

The lower device 104 may include one or more processor cores 138, amemory controller 140, and local device-integrated or discrete memory142. The lower device 104 communicates with the upper device 106 throughports 144, which may be electrical conductors or optical ports, forexample. In embodiments, the lower device 104 may also include externalports 146, such as Ethernet or storage ports, for communications withexternal devices. For example, the storage ports may include FibreChannel ports or SCSI ports, among others. Additionally, the lowerdevice 104 may be integrated with the processor 102, for example, in thesame circuit package or on the same silicon chip as the processor 102and the upper device 106.

Unlike traditional I/O devices, the lower device 104 does not includework queues, receive queues, or completion queues corresponding to thework queues 120, receive queues 122, and completion queues 124 includedin the upper device 106. Further, the lower device 104 does not havedirect access to the IOMMU 130 of the upper device 106 nor does it needto comprehend memory translations from the IOMMU 130. This differs fromtraditional I/O which may a priori acquire translated addresses to allowsubsequent device I/O transactions to bypass the IOMMU 130 andtranslation cache to improve performance. In accordance with exemplaryembodiments, communications between the upper device 106 and lowerdevice 104 may be controlled, at least in part, by the use of data flowidentifiers. Each packet pushed from the lower device 104 to the upperdevice 106 or pushed from the upper device 104 to the lower device 106will include one or more data flow identifiers, which are used toidentify the targeted resources. The lower device 104 does not operatein the coherency domain of the system 100, meaning that it does not haveknowledge of physical memory address and does not receive directnotification with regard to memory or processor cache control and updateoperations.

The lower device 104 can include a variety of data and control buffers,which reside in device integrated or discrete memory 142 as well asdevice-specific logic, depending on the function and resourcecapabilities of the lower device 104. For example, the lower device 104may include transmit/receive buffers 148 for handling data transferredto and from the external devices through the external ports. The lowerdevice 104 may also include a device management table 150, which mayinclude a device context table 152 and a data flow lookup table 154. Thedevice context table 152 can be used to store configuration and controlinformation, operation processing policies, error handling andmanagement statistics, and information related to data flow through thelower device 104, such as Management Information Blocks (MIB), andCommon Information Model (CIM), among others.

In embodiments, link-level flow control between the upper device 106 andlower device 104 may be configured to control the transmission of I/Opackets based on the availability of resources in the receiving deviceto accept and process the incoming packets. Link-level flow controlbetween the upper device 106 and lower device 104 may be implementedusing, for example, a credit-based protocol. In credit-based flowcontrol, the receiving device allocates an initial credit limit to eachsending device. The sending device paces its transmission of I/O packetsto the receiving device based on the number of credits it receives fromthe receiving device. When sending I/O packets to the receiving device,the sending device tracks the number of credits consumed by each I/Opacket from its account. The sending device may only transmit an I/Opacket when doing so does not result in its consumed credit countexceeding its credit limit. When the receiving device finishesprocessing the I/O packet from its buffer, it signals a return ofcredits to the sending device, which then increases the credit limit bythe restored amount. It will be appreciated that other link-level flowcontrol techniques may be used in accordance with embodiments.

The data flow lookup table 154 may be a filter table, which associateseach internal or external resource with a unique data flow identifier.The data flow lookup table 154 may be populated, for example, by adevice driver running on the processor 102. The device driver thatpopulates the data flow lookup table 154 may be a general purpose devicedriver or a dedicated device driver associated with the specific device.The data flow lookup table 154 may be used by the lower device 104 totarget a specific resource of the upper device 106 when receiving datafrom or pushing data to the upper device 106. The specific configurationof the data flow lookup table 154 may vary depending on the particularimplementation. For example, in the case of an Ethernet-based lowerdevice 104, the data flow lookup table 154 associates external dataflow, such as Ethernet frames, to an internal flow between the upperdevice 106 and lower devices 104. For example, the data flow lookuptable 154 may include a set of unique data flow identifiers. Each dataflow identifier may be associated with one or more fields contained inthe Ethernet frame, such as the source MAC address, destination MACaddress, Virtual LAN Identifier (VID), Service VLAN ID (SVID), andTenant Service Identifier (TSID), among others. Upon receipt of anEthernet frame by the lower device 104 from an external device, theEthernet header may be parsed to identify any set of fields containedwithin the Ethernet Header. This parsed data may then be applied to thedata flow lookup table 154 to identify a corresponding data flowidentifier used for transferring the data to the upper device 106.Ethernet-based communications received by the lower device 104 from theupper device 106 may also include the same data flow identifier. Thelower device 104 may then use the data flow identifier to identify thecorresponding fields used to generate an Ethernet frame to betransmitted to the external device.

In embodiments, the lower device 104 may be a graphics processing unit(GPU), in which case, the lower device 104 can perform calculations ondata received from the upper device 106 and send the result back to theprocessor 102 through the lower device 104 or to a frame buffer, forexample. Applications running on the processor 102 may be configured toscale on a per core 108 or per thread basis, enabling several graphicsprocessing elements to be processed in parallel. Further, the GPU mayalso include a plurality of GPU processor cores, for example, theprocessor cores 138. The data flow lookup table 154 may include a set ofunique identifiers used to associate a set of GPU processing cores witha specific processor core 108 or process thread. In this way, the workcan be processed in parallel to make efficient use of the performancescaling. In an embodiment, the GPU-based lower device 104 may be sharedby multiple virtual machines. Each virtual machine may be represented bya specific data flow identifier that allows the virtualization softwareto comprehend which set of upper devices 106 and lower resources 104 arebeing used by a given virtual machine. This may enable solutions tooptimize the operations and improve scaling.

In embodiments, the lower device 104 may be a storage controller. Thestorage workload may be distributed across a plurality of the processorcores 108 or processing threads to increase scalability. For example,the storage workload may be distributed on a per LUN basis, a perworld-wide unique identifier (WWID) basis, a per VM instance basis, andthe like. In the case of a storage controller, the data flow lookuptable 154 may be used to associate specific host resources with specificstorage resources. For example, the data flow lookup table 154 mayinclude a set of unique data flow identifiers, each data flow identifierassociated a specific LUN, WWID, VM instance, and the like. In this way,the data flow lookup table 154 provides a fast lookup mechanism thatenables the lower device 104 to target specific host resources that arerarely, if ever, shared by multiple processor cores or threads.Distributing the storage workload in this way helps to preventcontention for the host resources by reducing the sharing of hostresources between multiple processor cores 108 or threads, thus reducingcache-to-cache communication. This also allows for resource contentionand serialization code to be eliminated, which reduces the overhead foreach operation.

In embodiments, the lower device 104 may be a USB host controller used,for example, to couple one or more peripheral devices to the processor102. Each external port may be a USB controller port coupled to aperipheral device such as a mouse, keyboard, printer, scanner, and thelike. In the case of a USB host, the data flow lookup table 154associates each USB port with a specific resource of the upper device106. For example, the data flow lookup table 154 may include a set ofunique data flow identifiers, each data flow identifier associated witha specific USB port identifier.

In traditional PCIe-based communications, a device driver would create aset of resources in host memory that are accessed through PCI DMAoperations from the PCI device, and the peripheral I/O device wouldinclude a shadow copy of the host resources, enabling the peripheral I/Odevice to specifically target resources of the host such as the transmitreceive work queues. For example, the traditional peripheral I/O devicewould be able to obtain work requests directly from the work queue orwrite data to a specific receive queue. Further, a traditionalPCIe-based IOMMU identifies physical memory address corresponding to aparticular memory read or write operation received from a peripheral I/Odevice using a virtual memory address provided by the PCIe-basedperipheral device and Requester ID associated with the peripheraldevice. Unlike traditional PCI or PCIe communications, the lower device104, in accordance with embodiments of the present invention, does nothave access to resources of the upper device 106, such as thetransmit/receive work queues. Further, the lower device 104 does nothave any data regarding the mapping of the memory resources of the upperdevice 106.

Unlike a traditional local I/O communications, the destination for datapushed from the lower device 104 to the upper device 106 or from theupper device 106 to the lower device 104 is determined based on the dataflow identifiers. The data flow identifier is not a memory address andis not used by the lower device 104 to directly access host memory.Rather, the data flow identifier is an index or pointer, for example. Adata flow identifier may be included with each pushed data packet andidentifies the target destination for the data. For example, the dataflow identifier can be used by the upper device 106 to identify acorresponding physical memory address associated with the data flowidentifier. The process by which the upper device 106 uses the data flowidentifier to identify a corresponding physical memory address may varydepending on the particular implementation.

When a data flow is established between and the upper device 106 and thelower device 104, the upper device 106 creates the data flow identifier.As described above, the flow identifier is an opaque handle, which maybe encoding or created using information from several inputs. Forexample, the handle may be created to understand the applicationidentifier (e.g., a process identifier), the virtual machine identifier(if used), the lower device identifier, the processor core or threadlogical identifier, and the like. Using this information, the relevantapplication, such as the operating system or the user application, maypost multiple receive buffers, which embed this information into eachreceive queue element. The receive queue may be populated by theapplication ahead of actual access by the lower device 104. Theapplication may also create read or write access rights prior to anydata being exchanged. For example, the application may set up a numberof receive buffers initially and then over time add in more or replenishthem as they are consumed. For read requests, the application may set upa range of host memory that is accessed by remote applications. This setup occurs prior to any read operation being issued. Similar to the writeoperation, the number of reads allowed or the address ranges may bedynamically updated based on application-specific needs.

In embodiments, the upper device 106 includes a plurality of receivequeues 122, wherein each data flow identifier is associated with aspecific one of the plurality of receive queues 122. Upon receipt of anI/O packet from the lower device 104, the upper device 106 may extractthe data flow identifier from the packet header, and identify thereceive queue 122 and receive queue element corresponding to the I/Opacket. The receive queue element may contain a descriptor that defineshow to process the data that arrived. For example, the receive queueelement may contain a set of physical addresses that describe where thedata is to be placed in memory 114 or cache 116. In an embodiment, thereceive queue element may contain a translation handle that is used toaccess the IOMMU to acquire the physical addresses that allow the datato be placed.

In an embodiment, the receive queue element may be an anonymous bufferthat is posted by the application, but the application does notcomprehend what will arrive for that buffer. The receive queue elementmay contain or point to logic that is used to address a specific addresslocation as a function of the data that arrives. The upper device 106may contain some embedded processing capacity that allows it to parsethe data that has arrived and take action based on the data contents.For example, the upper device 106 may determine whether the data isencrypted and if so then invoke a decrypt function. In another example,the upper device 106 may determine whether the data is of a particularformat, such as XML schema, in which case the upper device 106 mayredirect the data to an XML accelerator. It will be appreciated that theupper device 106 can contain a wide range of optional functionality.

In an embodiment, the receive queue element includes a data structurewith a set of virtual memory addresses. When the packet arrives, theupper device 106 can access the receive queue element and determine whatportion of the packet corresponds with the different virtual addressranges. Working in conjunction with the IOMMU 130, the upper device 106determines the real physical addresses and places or copies the data tothese locations, which may or may not be contiguous. For example, in thecase of a received network packet, the receive queue may contain anaddress where the network headers are to be written and an address wherethe data payload is to be written. The network headers are consumed by anetwork stack while the data payload may be directly placed in theapplication's memory, thus providing real copy avoidance. In otherwords, direct placement eliminates the need for software executing in aprocessor core or thread performing the traditional software-based copyoperation between the traditional device driver's memory and theapplication's memory. In another example, if the data payload uses anXML schema or other protocol, the network or storage headers may bestripped and the data payload redirected to an accelerator or to aspecial process within the host that provides additional value-addprocessing.

In some embodiments, the receive queue 122 may contain a virtual memoryaddress, which may be associated, for example, with a particular virtualmachine running on the processor 108. The upper device 106 may translatethe virtual memory address into a physical memory address associatedwith the virtual machine and perform access validation using the IOMMU130. In embodiments, the receive queue element includes an actualphysical memory address, and the IOMMU 130 may be skipped, therebyfurther reducing latency of the operation and improving overall systemperformance. Furthermore, the data flow identifier can be associatedwith multiple receive queues 122, in which case the data flow identifieracts as a multicast group identifier for multicast operations thattarget two or more hosts, such as two or more virtual machines. Thepayload data may be automatically replicated to multiple receive bufferswithout the use of a host software invocation or multiple DMA writes.

In embodiments, the IOMMU 130 may be configured to receive the flowidentifier from the lower device 104. The IOMMU 130 may be configured todetermine a physical address and perform access validation based on theflow identifier received from the lower device 104. In embodiments, theIOMMU 130 may be configured to identify a specific element of thereceive queue 122 based on the data flow identifier received from thelower device 104. The receive queue element may be programmed by theupper device 106 with a look up address associated with the operation.Upon receiving a write operation from the lower device 104, the IOMMU130 can use the flow identifier to identify the corresponding receivequeue element, extract the look up address contained in the receivequeue element, and translate the look up address into a physical memoryaddress. In some embodiments, the look up address contained in thereceive queue 122 is a virtual memory address, which may be associated,for example, with a particular virtual machine running on the processor108. In embodiments, the receive queue element may contain the actualphysical memory address itself, enabling the IOMMU 130 to be bypassedentirely to reduce latency and increase overall system performance.

In embodiments, the IOMMU 130 may implement access policies for specificdata flows based on the data flow identifier. The access policy of theIOMMU policy determines whether the lower device 104 is allowed to readfrom or write to a specific memory address. In embodiments, the IOMMU130 enables the lower device 104 to read from or write to a specificmemory address during a specified time window. The IOMMU 130 may beconfigured to associate a specific data flow identifier with a specificphysical memory address translation, which is enabled for a specifiedamount of time. When the time window elapses the memory addresstranslation may be removed by the IOMMU 130. I/O packets received fromthe lower device 104 outside of the time window and using the same flowidentifier would thereby be blocked. Such time-window access may beuseful, for example, in processing writes to a database, constructingsecurity policies that govern memory access, and so forth.

In embodiments, the IOMMU 130 may implement a read-once or a write-onceaccess policy. In implementing the read-once or write-once policy, theIOMMU 130 may associate a specific data flow identifier with a specificphysical memory address translation. Upon receiving an I/O packet fromthe lower device 104 that references the corresponding data flowidentifier, the IOMMU 130 translates the data flow identifier into thespecific physical memory address and then removes or invalidates thetranslation. Subsequent I/O packets with the same data flow identifierwould thereby be blocked. Similarly, the IOMMU 130 may implement anaccess policy that enables a specified number of reads or writes greaterthan one before invalidating the translation.

Various other improvements and simplifications can be realized by thepresent techniques. For example, data transmitted between the upperdevice 106 and lower device 104 may be replicated across two or morelinks between the upper device 106 and the lower device 104. In thisway, the upper device 106 and lower device 104 will still be able tocommunicate if one of the link fails, even if the failure occurs duringan ongoing transaction. Additionally, the upper device 106 may beconfigured to replicate data packets to two or more lower devices 104,and the lower device 104 may be configured to replicate data packets totwo or more upper devices 106. Such replicated data transmission mayenable improved failover techniques, for example.

Similar to replication, the communications may be distributed acrossmultiple paths between the upper device 106 and the lower device 104,which may increase the aggregate bandwidth for data transmission betweenthe upper device 106 and lower device 104. Furthermore, packets may alsobe multicast from one upper device 106 to multiple lower devices 104 orfrom one lower device 104 to multiple upper devices 106. Multicastingmay be performed using an optical or copper bus structure or anintermediate switch between the upper devices 106 and the lower devices104. Multicasting enables information to be easily replicated betweencomponents without having to perform a plurality of unicasttransmissions.

In embodiments, the upper device 106 may be used to perform co-locatedinter-VM communications without any interaction with the lower device104 or associated lower device logic. Co-located inter-VM communicationsrefers to communications between two or more virtual machines hosted bythe same processor or set of processors within the same coherency domain102. The upper device 106 can be used in conjunction with the IOMMU 130to implement a direct I/O (DIO) communication model. For example, ahypervisor could program the data flow lookup table 142 with a uniqueflag that indicates that the target lower device 104 is one or moreco-located virtual machines instead of an actual lower device 104. Whenthe upper device 106 detects this flag, it targets the destination VM'sresources, translates the destination buffers via the IOMMU 130, andperforms the appropriate data movement. By performing inter-VMcommunications as described above, the use of a software virtual switch(vSwitch) or a device-integrated Virtual Ethernet Bridge (VEB) may beeliminated.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an upper device 106, in accordance withembodiments. As shown in FIG. 2, the upper device 106 includes acoherency packet interface 200 used to communicate with the processorcores 108 and memory controller 110 (FIG. 1). The coherency packetinterface 200 resides in the upper device 106 and executes a memorycoherency protocol according to the design of the processor.

The IOMMU translation cache 134 holds recently accessed IOMMU entrieswith a focus on reducing IOMMU access latency and coherency interfacestructures. The IOMMU access validation and translations may be donewithin the upper device 106 or the requests may be forwarded to IOMMUlogic resident in another portion of the system for processing.Combining the upper device 106 with the IOMMU validation logic reduceslatency and enables more efficient resource utilization.

The upper device 106 can also include a data cache 202 that holds datato be transmitted to or received from the lower device 104. The datacache 202 may be continuously updated to or from caches of the processorcores 108, the memory controller 110, or the main memory 110 through thecoherency interface 200. Furthermore, some processing related to themoving of packets, such as packet header manipulations, may be performedon the data stored to the data cache. The upper device 106 also includestransmit/receive work queues 118, which contain work requests initiatedby a read or write request from the lower device 104 or a request from aprocessor core 108 to push data to the lower device 104, for example.Each of the transmit/receive work queues 118 may be associated with adifferent data flow identifier.

In an embodiment, the upper device 106 may include a queue forprocessing inbound write requests a separate queue for processinginbound read requests. Inbound write request may target a correspondingreceive queue, while an inbound read request may target a separate readwork queue. In the case of a read, the upper device 106 does the sameseries of steps to validate and translate the address range but alsogathers up the memory data into a buffer, such as the data cache 202,and pushes the memory data to the lower device 104. The headerassociated with this pushed data may contain information from the lowerdevice 104 that allows it to correlate the returned data buffer with theoriginating read request.

The upper device 106 also includes a number of work flow controlmechanisms, such as doorbells 204, used to launch work requests from theprocessor cores 108. The doorbells 204 may be accessed by the processorcores 108, but are not accessible to the lower device 104. The workrequests can involve moving application data, operating system data,control data regarding the upper device 106, and the like. The data flowmanagement structure 126 may be used to describe the resources of theupper device 106, such as the memory location, and size, of thetranslation cache 134, data cache 202, and other data structures. Thedata flow management structure 126 may be used to store data thatassociates each lower device 104 (FIG. 1) with a specific data flowidentifier.

The upper device 106 may also include one or more transmit/receivepacket interfaces 208, which are used to communicate with one or morelower devices 104. The upper device 106 pushes packets to the lowerdevice 104 by translating data flow information associated withoperation into an I/O packet header, which includes the data flowidentifier. The upper device 106 concatenates the I/O packet header tothe data payload and transmits concatenated header/data payload to thelower device 104. Similarly, the lower device 104 pushes packets to theupper device 106. The packets pushed up from the lower device 104 alsoinclude payload data and a packet header, which contains a data flowidentifier. The upper device 106 removes the header and processes thedata. For example, the data flow identifier may be used to determinewhich receive queue or receive queue element is associated with thepacket. Additionally, the upper device 106 may perform IOMMU accessvalidation and address translation based on the data flow identifier.Depending on the result of the access validation, the upper device 106then transfers the data payload to main memory or directly to aprocessor cache through the coherency packet interface and updates theappropriate completion queues 120 (FIG. 1). In an embodiment, the dataflow identifier can include a hint that the data has near-term use,meaning that the data is going to be used quickly by a processor core orthread. In response to the hint, the upper device 106 may place the datain the processor's cache 116 rather than the main memory 114.

The data flow identifier may be a single value, e.g. a N-bit identifierthat acts an opaque handle. For example, N may be small to very large,for example 16-bits to as much as 256 bits. The data flow identifier maybe encoded with a set of information that allows either the upper device106 or the lower device 104 to quickly access and comprehend how toprocess the data. The data flow identifier may also be equated tomultiple fields within the protocol header used when transporting thedata between the upper devices 106 and lower devices 104. For example,the data flow identifier might contain a set of fields such as <upperdevice id>, <lower device id>, <queue set id>, <priority class>, <deviceclass id>, <operation type>, and the like. Using these fields, eitherlower or upper device can take actions to uniquely identify the dataflow and process the data.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a lower device 104, in accordance withembodiments. As shown in FIG. 3, the lower device 104 no longer containsdoorbells, transmit/receive work queues, and various other datastructures associated with traditional peripheral I/O devices. In someembodiments, the lower device 104 includes one or more upper devicepacket interfaces 300 for sending I/O packets to and receiving I/Opackets from the upper device 106. The packet interface 300 includes thelogic that deals with the actual physical processing of information toor from the physical port2 144. Two or more upper device packetinterfaces 300 may be configured to communicate as a group with a singleupper device 106. The group of upper device packet interfaces 300 may beconfigured as a failover group. The group of upper device packetinterfaces 300 may be configured to implement load balancing techniques,wherein data may be split onto separate flows, each associated with adifferent data flow identifier.

The lower device 104 may implement one or more packet interfaces 300.Each packet interface 300 may communicate with one or more upper devices106 through either point-to-point, bus-based, or switch-based fabrics.The lower device 106 may communicate through two or more of the packetinterfaces 300 to a given upper device 106, which also supports two ormore packet interfaces 208. The packet interfaces 300/208 may beconfigured as active-active, wherein all packet interfaces 300/208 areused to transmit and receive packets between the devices at the sametime. The packet interfaces 300/208 may also be configured asactive-passive where one set of packet interfaces is active and theothers are treated as stand by. Either active-active or active-passivemay be used to provide fail-over services in the event the interface orpath between the upper device 106 and the lower devices 104. Theactive-active configuration can also provide higher performance sincemultiple interfaces are operating in parallel, thereby increasing theaggregate bandwidth and number of packets per second that can beexchanged. In some embodiments, a particular data flow will beconstrained to a single packet interface between the upper device 106and the lower device 104, thus ensuring that all packets are transmittedand arrive in the order they are posted.

The active-active configuration may also be used to stripe data acrossmultiple packet interfaces. Striping data across multiple packetinterfaces increase per data flow aggregate bandwidth and reduceslatency. A variety of techniques may be used to ensure that all of thedata arrives and that the proper ordering is preserved from theapplication perspective. For example, a control signal may be sent,either as a discrete packet or within the packet header. The controlsignal can be used to indicate that the final packet has beentransmitted on each packet interface. The receiving device (upper device106 or lower device 104) does not consider the exchange completed untilit receives a final indication from all packet interfaces. Once thecontrol signals are received, the device may execute the post processingas if the data had been transmitted across a single packet interface. Inan embodiment, the upper and lower devices may be configured to supportdata stripping combined with fail-over are capabilities.

In an embodiment, the active-active configuration can also be used thisto transmit the same data on both interfaces. The upper device 106 andlower device 104 will see the same data arrive on multiple interfacesand discard the duplicate data. If the data arrives on only oneinterface, then the devices know that one of the interfaces has failed.No data loss will have occurred since the data was transmitted over twoor more discrete paths. This technique enables a significantly higheravailable solution to be constructed, which today is not possible to dousing PCI-based technologies.

The lower device 104 may also include one or more transmit/receivepacket interfaces 302 for communicating with an external fabric orinternal processing elements within the lower device 104. For example,each transmit/receive interface may be coupled to an Ethernet port, astorage port, a USB port, and the like. The transmit/receive buffers 148hold data to be transmitted to or received from the lower device 104.The transmit/receive buffers 148 may be continuously updated from theupper device packet interface or each external port's transmit/receivepacket interface. Furthermore, some processing related to the moving ofpackets, such as packet header manipulations, may be performed on thedata stored to the transmit/receive buffers 148. The transmit/receivebuffers 302 can also be used as the command and data buffers used, forexample, in a GPU.

The device management table 150 may be used to translate inbound I/Odata packets into the appropriate upper device I/O packet header. Inembodiments, the lower device 104 also includes communication to anexternal fabric, for example, Ethernet, in which case the data flowlookup table 142 can also be used to translate outbound I/O data packetsinto the appropriate the external device header. The device managementtable 150 may also include a device context memory used to describe theresources of the lower device 104, such as the memory location, andsize, of the device data structures such as the Transmit/Receive buffers148, data flow lookup table, and the like.

The lower device 104 can receive data pushed to it by the upper device106, perform the appropriate header manipulations, and process the dataor push it out to an external fabric. The lower device 104 can alsoreceive data pushed to it from an external fabric, perform theappropriate header manipulations, process the data, and push the data tothe upper device 106 for processing by an application or operatingsystem, for example. In embodiments, the lower device 104 also performsvarious calculations on the data pushed to it from the upper device 106or an external device. For example, the lower device 104 may beprogrammed to perform graphics related calculations common to graphicprocessing units, and packet encryption, among others. However, thelower device 104, in accordance with some embodiments, does not use thePCI communication semantics and does not replicate state or performstate maintenance related to the processor or the applications runningon the processor. The stateless operation of the lower device 104enables the lower device hardware and software to be significantlysimplified compared to traditional peripheral I/O devices. Furthermore,because the large overhead of control commands associated withtraditional PCI communications is eliminated, communications between theupper device 106 and the lower device 104 in accordance with presenttechniques is more efficient. For example, a data transfer between theupper device 106 and lower device 104 may be accomplished with as littleas a single packet.

In an embodiment, the lower device 104 may be a PCI-based device. Insuch an embodiment, the lower device 104 may include a PCIe root complexand associated root ports for communicating with external devices.However, the upper device 106 would itself not be directly involved inthe PCI-based communications. Rather, the PCI-based lower device 104would be just another lower device 104 supporting yet another protocolwhich in this case is PCI.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an example of an I/O packet, in accordancewith embodiments. The I/O packet 400 shown in FIG. 4 may be used toexchange I/O packets between the upper device 106 and the lower device104 using the push-push communications model described herein. The I/Opacket 400 includes the payload data 402 and a packet header 404 thatincludes control information that identifies, among other things, thesource and destination of the payload data exchanged between the lowerdevice 104 and the upper device 106. In the case of inboundcommunications, the payload data includes the data to be transferred tothe corresponding memory associated with the upper device 106. In thecase of outbound communications, the payload data includes the data readfrom memory and transferred to the lower device 104. For example, thepayload data may be data to be included in the payload of an outboundEthernet frame or stored to an external storage device.

The I/O packet may include any suitable combination of fields, which maybe used to identify the next steps to be taken by the upper device 106or the lower device 104 to process the data. As shown in FIG. 4, the I/Opacket 400 can include a destination data flow identifier 406 and asource data flow identifier 408. The upper device 106 and the lowerdevice 104 may determine the destination of the payload data pushed toit using the destination data flow identifier 406 alone or incombination with the source data flow identifier 408. With regard toinbound data, the source data flow identifier 408 may be useful when anupper device 106 is coupled to two or more lower devices 104. Eachdestination data flow identifier 406 may be unique within a specificlower device 104, and different lower devices 104 may not be aware ofthe flow identifiers used by other lower devices 104. Thus, thecombination of the source data flow identifier 408 and the destinationdata flow identifier 406 may be used by the upper device 106 todetermine the actual destination of the I/O packet's payload datareceived from a lower device 104.

With regard to outbound data, the source data flow identifier 408 may beuseful when a lower device 104 is coupled to two or more upper devices106. Each destination data flow identifier 406 may be unique within aspecific upper device 106, and different upper devices 106 may not beaware of the flow identifiers used by other upper devices 106. Thus, thecombination of the source data flow identifier 408 and the destinationdata flow identifier 406 may be used by the lower device 104 todetermine the actual destination of the I/O packet's payload datareceived from an upper device 106. In embodiments, the destination dataflow identifier 406 and source data flow identifier 408 are uniquewithin the coherency domain to enable transparent failover acrossmultiple upper devices 106 and multiple lower devices 104. Furthermore,with regard to inbound data the source data flow identifier 408 may beused to evaluate access privileges of the lower device 104. In this way,the memory integrity may be protected in the event that a malfunctioninglower device 104 attempts to erroneously write data to a memory addressthat has not been allocated to it.

The I/O packet header 404 can also include a frame sequence number 410that is used to identify the order of the bytes sent, so that the datacan be reconstructed in the proper order. The I/O packet header 404 canalso include an operation code 412 that specifies an operation to beperformed, depending on the type of lower device 104. For example, theoperation code 412 may include an indication of Read, Write, Status,Configure, Reset (range of reset options possible), Error Notification,and Error Recovery Notification, among others. In embodiments, thepacket may also include a Frame Check Sequence (FCS) 414 used for errorcorrection and detection. It will be appreciated that the I/O packet 400show in FIG. 4 is but one example of an I/O packet 400 in accordancewith present embodiments, as various elements may be added or removed inaccordance with a particular implementation.

FIG. 5 is a process flow diagram of an example of an outbound writeoperation, in accordance with embodiments. The outbound write operationis referred to by the reference number 500. An outbound write operation500 may be initiated by software running on the processor, for example,the operating system, an application, or a device driver correspondingto the lower device 104. As shown in FIG. 5, the outbound writeoperation 500 may begin with an access control and address translationrequest sent from the upper device 106 to the IOMMU 130, as indicated byarrow 502. In response to the request, the IOMMU 130 identifies aphysical memory address corresponding to the operation and determineswhether the requesting process has access rights to the memoryaddresses. As indicated by arrow 504, the IOMMU 130 returns a responseto the upper device 106, which may include a validation of the accessrights as well as the physical memory addresses for the operation. Inembodiments, the process initiating the outbound write operation 500 mayrefer to an actual physical memory address, in which case the addresstranslation process may be skipped. In an embodiment, the writeoperation may access a vector of memory addresses, such as a set of<address, length> tuples.

As indicated by arrow 506, the upper device 106 then sends a memory readrequest to the appropriate memory 114 or 116, which may be, for example,a processor integrated memory or cache, discrete memory or cache, orupper device-integrated memory or cache. The memory 114 or 116 may beaccessed directly through hardware, such as the memory controller 110,or indirectly through software using, for example, load/store semanticsthat enable data to be read from the cache 116 or main memory 114 by oneor more of the processor cores 108. A series of memory read responsesmay then be issued by the memory to the upper device 106, as indicatedby arrows 508. The upper device 106 gathers the data, encapsulates thedata into packets, and pushes the data to the lower device 104, asindicated by arrow 510. Each data packet generated by the upper device106 includes the data flow identifier in the packet header. During theoutbound write operation neither the processor nor the upper device 106directly accesses resources of the lower device 104.

Upon receiving the data packet from the upper device 106, the lowerdevice 104 processes the data packet according to the device specificprotocols, as indicated by arrow 512. For example, in the case of anEthernet-based lower device 104, the lower device 104 encapsulates thepayload data in an Ethernet frame. Header information for the Ethernetframe may be determined based on the information in the lower device'sdata flow identifier table entry corresponding to the data flowidentifier received from the upper device 106. The lower device 104 thentransmits the Ethernet frame to the external device. In the case of agraphics processor, for example, the lower device 104 may performvarious graphics calculations on the received data send the results to agraphics frame buffer. In the case of a storage controller, for example,the lower device 104 may identify one or more physical storageaddresses, and the send the payload data to storage. In an embodiment,the logical unit numbers associated with the storage operation may beextracted from the I/O packet header. In an embodiment, the logical unitnumbers may be configured within the lower device 104 to be associatedwith a particular data flow identifier.

FIG. 6 is a process flow diagram of an example of an inbound writeoperation, in accordance with embodiments. The inbound write operationis referred to by the reference number 600. As indicated by the arrow602, an inbound write operation 600 may be initiated by the lower device104. For example, an inbound write operation 600 may be initiated by aprocess running on the lower device 104 or an event such as receipt of apacket by the lower device 104 from an external device. The lower device104 acquires a data flow identifier corresponding to the inbound write.For example, in the case of an Ethernet frame received by the lowerdevice 104 from an external device, the source ID and destination ID ofthe received Ethernet frame may be used to acquire one or more data flowidentifiers from the data flow lookup table, for example, as destinationdata flow identifier and a source data flow identifier, as described inrelation to FIG. 4. The payload data may be extracted from the EthernetFrame and encapsulated in a local I/O packet, such as described inrelation to FIG. 4. The local I/O packet header includes thecorresponding data flow identifiers extracted from the lookup table. Inembodiments, the payload data may be encapsulated in multiple I/Opackets. The one or more data packets may be transmitted to the upperdevice 106, as indicated by arrow 604.

Upon receipt of the data packets, the upper device 106 parses the I/Opacket header to identify the corresponding data flow resources of theupper device 106, based on the data flow identifiers contained in thepacket header. For example, the flow identifier may be used to identifya receive queue corresponding to the inbound write. In embodiments, thereceive queue includes a virtual memory address or lookup addressassociated with the write operation. As indicated by arrow 606, theupper device 106 may then send an access control request and an addresstranslation request to the IOMMU 130 using the corresponding virtualmemory address or lookup address. The IOMMU 130 identifies a physicalmemory address corresponding to the operation and determines whether therequesting process has access rights to the corresponding memoryaddress. As indicated by arrow 608, the IOMMU then returns a response tothe upper device 106, which may include a validation of the accessrights as well as the physical memory addresses for the operation. Asdiscussed above, in relation to FIG. 1, the IOMMU may also invalidatesubsequent access to the corresponding memory address translation. Forexample, when the upper device 106 posts the completion event for thewrite operation, the upper device 106 may update the IOMMU tables toremove the translation or otherwise indicate that the access rights aresuspended or removed. In an embodiment, the receive queue contains anactual physical memory address, in which case the address translationprocess may be skipped.

Upon identifying the physical memory addresses corresponding to theinbound write operation, the upper device 106 initiates one or morememory store operations addressed to the physical memory addresses, asindicated by arrows 610. The memory 114 or 116 may be, for example, aprocessor integrated memory or cache, discrete memory or cache, or upperdevice-integrated memory or cache. After the final memory store has beencompleted, the upper device 106 posts a completion indicator to thecorresponding completion queue, as indicated by arrow 612. As with theoutbound write operation, neither the processor nor the upper device 106accesses resources of the lower device 104.

FIG. 7 is a process flow diagram of an example of a link-failoveroperation, in accordance with embodiments. The link-failover operationis referred to by the reference number 700. As shown in FIG. 7, thefailover process involves a failover from lower device A to lower deviceB. As discussed above, a set of initial configuration operations may beperformed to associate an upper device 106 with a specific lower device104. During the initial configuration, the various information tables,such as the data flow ID table 154 and the Data flow management table126, are populated with all of the information used to establishcommunications between the two devices. In a fail-over configuration,software may separately store the configuration information for theupper device 106 and the lower device 104 to memory 114 or 116,including any subsequent updates should something change over time. Thememory may be, for example, a processor integrated memory or cache,discrete memory or cache, or upper device-integrated memory or cache.

The failover process may be initiated by lower device A by sending anerror notification or time out indication to the upper device 106, asindicated by arrow 702. Upon receiving the notification, the upperdevice 106 suspends access to lower device A and software may be invokedto identify a suitable fail-over target. The upper device 106 thendetermines the configuration of lower device A by sending a read requestto the memory 114 or 116 to access the previously stored configurationinformation, as indicated by arrow 704. The memory controller then sendsone or more read responses to the upper device 106 containinginformation related to the configuration of lower device A, as indicatedby arrows 706. Upon receiving the configuration data, the upper device106 sends one or more control messages to replicate the configuration oflower device A within lower device B, as indicated by arrows 708. Forexample, new data flow identifiers may be constructed, resourcesassigned, policies configured, and the like. The data flow associationsbetween the upper device 106 and the prior lower device 104 are nowconfigured in the lower device 104. As with the inbound and outboundwrite operations, neither the processor nor the upper device 106accesses the resources of lower device A or lower device B to implementthe failover.

Once configured, the upper device 106 and lower device B 104 can nowcommunicate with one another and the operations associated with theprior device's data flows are resumed. The entire process can occurcompletely transparent to the application and the outside world sincethere is no data loss and in this case, the new lower device B 104 mayannounce itself as the new port for the prior lower device A 104. Forexample, in Ethernet, a message could be broadcast to announce a givenMAC address is now at the source port represented by lower device B.

FIG. 8 is a process flow diagram of a method of processing an outboundEthernet frame, in accordance with embodiments. The method is referredto by reference number 800. Referring also to FIG. 1, the processesdescribed in blocks 802-806 may be performed by the upper device 106 andthe processed described in blocks 808-812 may be performed by the lowerdevice 104. For purposes of the description of FIG. 8, it is assumedthat the lower device 104 is an Ethernet-based communications device,such as a network interface card.

To generate an outbound Ethernet frame, an Ethernet device driver may beinvoked. At block 802, resources of the upper device 106 may beallocated to the device driver, which programs the allocated resourceswith the appropriate memory gather list and any device-specific controlinformation, including one or more data flow identifiers. In anembodiment, the lower device 104 may contain resource sets for one ormore MAC addresses, and each data flow identifier constructed during theconfiguration process may identify one of these MAC resource sets. In anembodiment, the data flow resource may be configured with the source anddestination MAC addresses to use as well as all of the informationneeded to construct an Ethernet frame.

At block 804, the upper device 106 validates access rights, gathers thepayload data and control information into a single packet, and pushesthe packet to the lower device 104. Data transfers that exceed a singlelocal communication packet size can be segmented into multiple packets.At block 806, the upper device 106 updates the completion queue when itcompletes the last packet pushed to the lower device 104.

At block 808, the lower device 104 receives the packets from the upperdevice 106. At block 810, the lower device 104 decodes the controlinformation and generates one or more Ethernet headers based, at leastin part, on the data flow identifier. At block 812, the lower device 104encapsulates the frame header and payload data into one or more Ethernetframes and transmits the Ethernet frames to the Ethernet fabric.

FIG. 9 is a process flow diagram of a method of processing an inboundEthernet frame, in accordance with embodiments. The method is referredto by reference number 900. Referring also to FIG. 1, the processesdescribed in blocks 902-906 may be performed by the lower device 104 andthe processed described in blocks 908-914 may be performed by the upperdevice 106. For purposes of the description of FIG. 9, it is assumedthat the lower device 104 is an Ethernet-based communications device,such as a network interface card.

At block 902 the lower device 104 receives an inbound Ethernet framefrom an external device and parses the Ethernet header to determine thetarget upper device 106. In embodiments, the lower device 104 can targetmultiple upper devices 106, for example, through an optical bus orcrossbar. At block 904, the lower device 104 translates the Ethernetframe header into a new I/O protocol header that includes thecorresponding data flow identifier. The I/O protocol header may alsoinclude additional information such as Quality of Service (QoS) data,among others. In embodiments, the lower device 104 replaces the Ethernetheader with the new I/O protocol header, which encapsulates the Ethernetdata payload. In embodiments, the new I/O protocol header encapsulatesthe entire Ethernet frame as it was received by the lower device 104,thereby preserving the original Ethernet header, which may be used forfurther processing by the upper device 106.

To identify which data flow identifier to use to push the payload datato the upper device 106, the lower device 104 may parse the Ethernetframe header to derive the information regarding the source anddestination of the payload data. For example, the lower device 104 mayidentify the source and destination MAC Addressed, the VLAN Identifier,the priority, the Ethernet Type and the like. Using this information,the lower device 104 analyzes the pre-configured information containedin the data flow Id table 154 and determines which data flow identifiercorresponds with the Ethernet packet. The upper device 106 and the lowerdevice 104 may also be configured with a default data flow identifier tohandle cases in which an Ethernet frame does not yield a particular dataflow identifier. When an Ethernet frame is received on the default dataflow identifier, software may be invoked that parses the information anddetermines how to proceed. For example, the Ethernet frame maycorrespond with a new destination address that was just acquired, inwhich case the software may configure a new association for that remotedestination. In this way, new information may be acquired even if a dataflow has not been pre-configured for the specific remote destination.

At block 906, the lower device 104 pushes the Ethernet frame to theupper device 106. At block 908, the upper device 106 receives theEthernet frame from the lower device 104 and parses the header toidentify the target receive queue based on the flow identifier. At block910, the upper device 106 relays the payload data to one or more receivequeues and associated data buffers. In embodiments, the upper device 106can perform multicast operations to multiple receive queues by using thedata flow identifier as a multicast group identifier.

At block 914, the upper device 106 also performs memory accessvalidation and address translation. In an embodiment, the memory accessvalidation and address translation is performed via the IOMMU. In anembodiment, the receive queue element may be programmed with thecorresponding physical memory address, in which case the IOMMU may bebypassed.

At block 914, the upper device 106 sends the payload data to thecoherency packet interface 200 and updates the corresponding completionqueues. Unlike traditional PCI communications, the lower device 104 doesnot track any of the host resources.

FIG. 10 is a process flow diagram of a method of conducting a storageoperation, in accordance with embodiments. The method is referred to byreference number 1000. For purposes of the description of FIG. 10, it isassumed that the lower device 104 is a device using a Small ComputerSystem Interface (SCSI), such as a disk drive. Further, it will beappreciated that for purposes of the description of FIG. 10, the lowerdevice 104 is a storage controller.

At block 1002, an initiator storage operation may be initiated by thedevice driver corresponding to the lower device 104. To process the SCSIreads and writes, the device driver generates a device-specific controlblock that the lower device 104 uses to process the storage controller'sSCSI read and write requests. The control block may be maintained withinthe lower device 104 and includes the flow identifier corresponding tothe operation. The device driver may also program the IOMMU withspecific translations applicable to the storage operation.

At block 1004, an initiator issues a storage operation to the lowerdevice 104 through an SCSI write. The initiator may be a computer oranother storage controller in the case of peer-to-peer communicationbetween storage controllers as in, for example, a tape back up beingperformed on a storage array. The payload of the SCSI write can includecontrol information that determines how the lower device 104 processesthe storage operation. For example, the payload of the SCSI write caninclude the data flow identifier and address information that identifiesone or more logical unit numbers (LUNs) corresponding to the storageoperation. The payload of the SCSI write can also include an SCSIcommand that identifies the storage operation as a storage read or astorage write.

At block 1006, the lower device receives and decodes the SCSI write. Thelower device parses the payload data of the SCSI write to determine howto proceed. At block 1008, a determination is made regarding whether thestorage operation is a storage write or a storage read. If the operationis a storage read, the process flow may advance to block 1010.

At block 1010, the lower device 104 acquires the requested data fromstorage and sends the data to the upper device 106 in one or more I/Opackets. The lower device 104 may identify the requested data by usingthe data flow identifier to identify the appropriate information in thecontrol block. The I/O packets sent to the upper device include the samedata flow identifier issued to the lower device through the SCSI writeat block 1002. At block 1012, the upper device 104 receives the I/Opackets from the lower device 104 and uses the data flow identifier toassociate the I/O packet's data payload to the appropriate data flowresources of the upper device 106.

If at block 1008 the operation is a storage write, the process flow mayadvance to block 1014. The storage write operation may be executed as aseries of reads commands sent from the lower device 104 to the upperdevice 106 based on the information in the control block. For example,the reads may be in response to the storage target making a request forthe next block of data. In this way, the lower device and the storagetarget work together to avoid the storage target being overrun with datasince some storage media operate at significantly slower speeds comparedto the high-speed I/O provided by the upper device 106 and lower device104.

At block 1014, the lower device uses the data flow identifier receivedfrom the upper device to identify the appropriate information from thecontrol block. Using the information from the control block, the lowerdevice 104 issues a series of read commands to the upper device 106 viaI/O packets that include the same data flow identifier issued to thelower device 104 at block 1004 through the SCSI write.

At block 1016, the upper device 106 decodes the packet header controlinformation, performs any IOMMU operations, gathers the appropriatememory, and generates one or more I/O packets which are pushed to thelower device 104. The I/O packet payload includes the data to be writtento storage. The packets pushed to the lower device 104 also include apacket header with control information, including the same flowidentifier.

At block 1018, the lower device receives and decodes the I/O packets.The lower device 104 uses the flow identifier to identify theappropriate control block maintained in the lower device 104corresponding to the operation. The lower device identifies theappropriate storage device memory addresses based on the data flowidentifier and sends the payload data to storage.

FIG. 11 is process flow diagram summarizing a method of processing localI/O, in accordance with embodiments. The method is referred to by thereference number 1100 and may begin at block 1102. At block 1102, theupper device 106 receives a data packet from a lower device 104. Thedata packet can include payload data and one or more data flowidentifiers, including source data flow identifiers and destination dataflow identifiers.

At block 1104, the upper device 106 identifies a data flow resourcebased on the data flow identifier and sends the payload data to theidentified data flow resource. For example, the upper device 106 mayidentify one or more receive queues or receive queue elementscorresponding to the data flow identifier. In embodiments, the IOMMU 130receives the data flow identifier and provides a translation to theupper device 106, which identifies a receive queue element of the upperdevice 106 based on the data flow identifier. After providing thetranslation, the IOMMU 130 may remove the translation associating thedata flow identifier with the receive queue element, in which casesubsequent attempts to access the same translation may be blocked.

At block 1106, the upper device 106 identifies a destination of thepayload data comprising a physical memory address and sends the payloaddata to the identified physical memory address. For example, the upperdevice 106 may send the data flow identifier to an IOMMU 130 and receivethe physical memory address corresponding to the data flow identifierfrom the IOMMU 130. In embodiments, the receive queue element includesthe physical memory address corresponding to the operation and access tothe IOMMU 130 may be skipped.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing a non-transitory, computer-readablemedium configured to process local I/O, in accordance with embodiments.The non-transitory, computer-readable medium is referred to by thereference number 400. The non-transitory, computer-readable medium 400can comprise RAM, a hard disk drive, an array of hard disk drives, anoptical drive, an array of optical drives, a non-volatile memory, auniversal serial bus (USB) drive, a digital versatile disk (DVD), acompact disk (CD), and the like. The non-transitory, computer-readablemedium 400 may also be firmware used to control an electronic device,such as the upper device 106 and the lower device 104. In someembodiments, the non-transitory, computer-readable medium 400 may alsobe an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC).

As shown in FIG. 12, the various components discussed herein can bestored on the non-transitory, computer-readable medium 400. A firstregion 1206 on the non-transitory, computer-readable medium 400 caninclude a data packet receiver that receives data packets from the lowerdevice, including payload data and a data flow identifier. A region 1208can include data flow resource identifier that identifies a data flowresource based on the data flow identifier and sends the payload data tothe data flow resource. A region 1210 can include a destinationidentifier that identifies a destination of the payload data, which mayinclude a physical memory address corresponding, for example, to a cacheor main memory address associated with the operation. The destinationidentifier may send the payload data to the physical memory address.

1. An electronic device, comprising: a lower device configured toprocess local input/output communications between the electronic deviceand a host, wherein the lower device is stateless; a memory comprising adata flow identifier used to associate a data flow resource of the hostwith a data flow resource corresponding to the lower device; wherein adata packet sent from the lower device to the host includes the dataflow identifier.
 2. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the dataflow identifier includes a plurality of fields that uniquely identifythe data flow resource of the host.
 3. The electronic device of claim 1,wherein the memory comprising the data flow identifier is populatedbased on control commands sent to the lower device from the host.
 4. Theelectronic device of claim 1, wherein the lower device is operativelycoupled to the host through two or more communications ports, and thelower device is configured to stripe data sent to the host across thetwo or more communication ports.
 5. The electronic device of claim 1,wherein the data flow identifier sent from the lower device to the upperdevice includes a hint that payload data included in the data packet hasnear-term use and, in response to the hint, the host places the payloaddata in a processor cache.
 6. The electronic device of claim 1, whereinthe lower device is a Network Interface Card (NIC) configured toidentify network protocol information using the data flow identifier andgenerate an outbound data frame based on the network protocolinformation.
 7. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the lowerdevice is a storage device configured to identify control blockinformation residing on the lower device using the data flow identifierand generate storage protocol information based on the control blockinformation.
 8. A method of processing local input/output, comprising:generating a data packet comprising payload data and a data flowidentifier; and pushing the data packet to a host, wherein a data flowresource of the host is identified by the host using the data flowidentifier.
 9. The method of claim 8, comprising receiving a data packetfrom an external source and identifying the data flow identifier basedon header information of the data packet.
 10. The method of claim 8,comprising receiving one or more control commands from the host andgenerating a control block based on the control commands, the controlblock including the data flow identifier.
 11. The method of claim 10,wherein the control block includes information corresponding to astorage read or write operation.
 12. The method of claim 8, comprisinggenerating a second data packet comprising the payload data and a seconddata flow identifier and pushing the second data packet to a secondhost.
 13. A non-transitory, computer-readable medium comprising codeconfigured to direct a processor to: generate a data packet comprisingpayload data and a data flow identifier; and push the data packet to ahost, wherein a data flow resource of the host is identified by the hostusing the data flow identifier.
 14. The non-transitory,computer-readable medium of claim 13 comprising code configured todirect the processor to receive an Ethernet packet from an externaldevice, and identifying the data flow identifier based on Ethernetheader information of the Ethernet packet.
 15. The non-transitory,computer-readable medium of claim 13 comprising code configured todirect the processor to receive one or more control commands from thehost and generating a control block based on the control commands, thecontrol block including the data flow identifier.